


Proof of Concept

by Matrya



Category: Firefly
Genre: Christmas fic, F/M, Foreshadowing, Spaceship Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 13:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9074758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matrya/pseuds/Matrya
Summary: Wash and Zoë from their first Christmas, to their last.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-series, then after the series but before the _Serenity_ film, pretty loosely? Everyone is on board, still. But there is a passage of time. That's my use of artistic license.
> 
> This was written for [redalader](http://redalader.tumblr.com) on Tumblr for the [Whedon Secret Santa](http://whedonsecretsanta.tumblr.com/)! I hope you enjoy it; I haven't worked in Firefly in a long while and I hope I did it proud!

"There ain't a power in the 'Verse capable of stopping me, Mal." Wash was never afraid to stand up to the Captain, not from minute one. Zoë figured she must know the Captain better than all of that.

As much as any one person could know the Captain, that is.

Still, Wash was standing tall, not sitting in his seat for once, and keeping eyes steady with the Captain. "Me and that stunning Amazonian Goddess who is my new bride are stopping. You're giving us half-a-day to drink and eat and be merry as we please. I'll ravish her, Mal. _She'll_ ravish me."

Wash goes on and Zoë is close to telling the Captain to please excuse her moonbrained husband when Wash stops. The Captain stares for a minute before he looks over at her. "Zoë, you hear this fei hua?"

"I hear it, sir."

"And what you think about all this?"

She glances between them. The captain's face is full of expectation, but even she can't read quite what. Her husband is easier to read, by worlds and worlds. There had been talk of that sort but she never had a thought that they would really… "It's a thought."

The Captain raised an eyebrow at her. Wash looked like he knew it was close as he could get to her going against the Captain and accepted that, better or worse. Still, the Captain shrugged and stepped right around his pilot. Zoë held still, not right certain if that was a good sign or something else altogether.

As the Captain's shoulder knocked into him, Wash shouted about it and the indignantly of the whole thing but the Captain…

The Captain was already dropping down into the seat Wash usually spent his day in. Wash turned to see just that and jumped back. "What are you—"

"Not sure I need a pilot so insubordinate," the Captain commented, leaning as much back as the seat did allow. He folded his hands behind his head. "Might need my first mate to take care of him for me."

As much as the Captain's face never gave off a thing, Zoë knew when the man was giving in. It never looked the same as when he was giving up, was the thing.

"Yes, sir," she agreed, not missing a moment.

"Wait, wait," Wash started, sounding a mite panicked. "What are we doing here? Do you think it's a need to get rid of me for wanting half-a-day with my wife?"

The Captain nodded once. "Absolutely. First it's half-a-day. Come next port, you'll be looking at two days. Then a week. I reckon by the end of the year, you'll be trying to settle Zoë down on-world. I can't be having risks like that on my boat." With a shake of his head, the Captain made note, "You never keep a man on your boat could lose you a first mate."

"He has a good point, dear," Zoë agree, giving her husband a look over. "A man of your sort could lead me to all kinds of crazy ideas."

"I just want to spend Christmas with my wife. My _family_!"

The Captain let out a snerk and Wash turned on him, then back to Zoë. "You!" he shouted loud, pointing an accusational finger at his wife. He turned to the Captain and did the same. "And _you_!"

Zoë watched as her husband turned back to her, offense in his every movement. "And. _You_!"

They took the half-a-day in port to do the sort of things you hardly got the time or place to do out in the black.  There wasn't so much a thing like festivities, but something about it was the most special Zoë had had since before the war, and they found the time to bring back presents for Bester and the Captain, even.

 

* * *

 

 

The Captain gave them a full day to themselves, for their second Christmas. There was one thing or another about no one deserving Jayne for the holiday and they were kicked off the ship on a resort planet with sunblock and their cut of the heist that brought them to the planet to start with. Inara was taking clients a few ports back and Kaylee was back with her folks for a moment, and Zoë was looking forward to having her husband to herself.

It was good, sun soaked and not a mite to be called a problem until the Captain sent a call about Jayne and a trouble he chose to make with some resorter or another.

"Couldn't keep your head down for a day," Wash muttered to the mercenary as he followed his own wife on board the ship. "You got some kind of aggression troubles in your brainpan we need to have looked over?"

"Wouldn't count it out," the Captain cut in before Jayne could get all hunched up and start spewing angry. "Just get us off this murky rock."

Zoë cleared her throat. "Murky, sir? These are the clearest waters for two systems and we were right around time for a massage."

Wash nodded, seeming to remember for the first and pointing at the Captain. "She's not wrong, Mal. There are people who come down to the beach and get you all softened up to get some real enjoyment while you're relaxing and sipping your—"

"Better luck next year," the Captain commented with a shrug, closing up the bay doors. "Now, why ain't I got a pilot in my bridge?"

That was that enough and Zoë found it hard to be too cantankerous when Wash took to being her masseur in lieu of more beachy offerings.

 

* * *

 

Their third Christmas, it was a full kind of ship and they were out in the dead of the black. It was less of a trouble than Zoë thought, even if Wash seemed put-out about it. "Where are you looking to go, dear?" she wondered at him, for not the first time in the day. They had been floating long enough, no one knew they had been on their last land. They had fuelled and been poking around for jobs here and there, but there had been no boots on the ground for a long while.

Too long, maybe.

"Alright, y'all. We might be all crowded up," Kaylee started over a breakfast that was as much grumbling as eating. "But this is about spending time with family, ain't it? And what other family we got than each other?"

The Shepard agreed without pause and with a lot of faithful words that made the Captain twitchy. Jayne grunted about it, like he was inclined to grunt about things he saw the point of.

River, sitting under the table, called out, "You all get gifts."

"We do have a few things," the doctor admitted, looking entirely as sheepish as the boy was able. It was a sight. "We knew we wouldn't know when we'd be planet-side again."

River's head popped up long enough to glare at her brother. "I told you we were having the longest night."

The doctor looked taken aback by it but Wash threw an arm around Zoë. "Well, you're not wrong, River. I don't remember the last time we spent so long out here."

"The work's not coming up," the Captain reminded. "The Alliance is on the chase and—"

Wash waved it off. "I ain't complaining, Mal. Well, a little complaining. More wondering about how River knew it."

Everyone was looking at the doctor then and he slowly looked around at all of them, looking ambushed at best. River suddenly popped up on the other side of the table and put her food at and empty space. "It's all about the monkeys and the weasel," she explained to them all before taking a bite from her plate.

"Well." Kaylee smiled at River, a little confused. "I got things for some of y'all and I know we could come up with something pretty-looking."

"I think," Inara started, drawing attention to the doorway. "I might be able to lend a hand with that." She wandered in until she was standing behind River's seat.

The Captain furrowed his brow. "Since when is Christmas the sort of thing you make time for?"

"Since all we have these days is each other." She reached down, playing with River's hair a little and everyone cast a weary kind of glance to the Captain. The two of them were on some precipice or another, even Zoë could see. Maybe they were in the midst of falling over it, for all anyone aboard could tell.

Not that is was a topic of discussion. Much.

Inara rested her hands on River's shoulders as the girl built something complicated and probably majestic with her nutritional protein foodstuff. "River and Kaylee, would you help me gather some things?"

They were amenable at least, enthusiastic at most, and Inara led them out in that attractive kind of flurry that drew the eyes of everyone in eyesight. Zoë wondered how one woman would command all that sort of attention but figured it was better she never learned.

"I believe I may have some things, as well," the Shepard informed the remaining crew members, pushing his chair out. "I—I will return. Are we setting things up here?"

"I got an idea for in the cargo hold," Jayne said, not making anything like eye contact while he looked toward the Captain.

The Captain looked utterly lost to the situation but seemed sceptical as the rest of them that Jayne had an idea. "What's the idea you got?"

Jayne crossed his arms over his chest. "We got the gangways. Might be able to hang something from them, look kinda like a tree from one of them Christmas books."

"That's a good idea," the Shepard encouraged, clasping a hand on Jayne's shoulder from beside him. "I'll give you a hand putting everything together."

Jayne looked shocked all over that someone thought he had a good idea, and stayed silent while the Shepard led him off. Wash looked at the Captain. "I bet he'll be shocked for days."

The Captain pushed his chair out from the table and looked at the three left. "You all can do what you will; I'll man the bridge."

He left, as he always was wont to do. When Zoë looked at where the doctor was left, he was staring at herself and her husband. They all stared for a bit longer before the doctor asked, "Is this happening or are we having a collective fever dream from floating too long?"

"Floating?" Wash asked and Zoë took note. The doctor never deemed to use their words; he stuck close to his grammatical rearing and good education while River picked and chose what suited her from one planet, or moment, to the next.

"Is there anything else to call it at this point?"

Zoë shook her head. "I don't suppose there is. It's happening, Doctor. Considering how your sister can find herself distracted…" she trailed off, leaving him to infer.

Wash picked up the trail, anyway, "You might want to gather up those gifts of hers before she kills Jayne."

"How are those things connected?" the doctor wondered, even as he stood up straight from his chair like it had never been beneath him.

"They ain't." Wash shrugged, pulling back the arm that was keeping the backs of her shoulders warm. "Just think we should get the festivities done before the bloodshed, for a change."

Zoë nodded, standing up herself. "Good point, dear." As the doctor started his slow journey to the passenger quarters, the put out a hand. "We should go get the gifts we have."

Wash took her hand anyway, but looked confused. "Gifts? We didn't…did we?"

"The ones in our bunk, far away from the cargo hold."

The doctor glanced back for the briefest sort of moment with a roll of his eyes and Zoë pulled her husband along with her.

They joined the party late and sated, and the whole thing was set up. A greenish blanket was hanging from a gangway and draping over a couple of  smaller, stacked crates. It looked nothing akin to a tree from one of those Christmas books Jayne was talking about, but he looked proud of the result. The Shepard looked on proudly at him all the same, as well.

Some scarves, deep red, were pinned on like decorations.

Jumbles of oddly wrapped and unwrapped items were arranged underneath the blanket-tree and everyone looked when the couple walked in. No one said anything for a beat too long, then River asked, "Are you ready to solve the mystery?"

They were, everyone was. It was something different from the normal day-in, day-out and they were all ready for something different. Zoë thought that even the captain should find a way out of the black after so long.

No one got anything too special but Kaylee lit up to open a used laser spanner and Zoë thought the knife River handed her would sharpen up nice.

River got a dress signed from Miranda in handwriting none of them knew, but it was a mystery for another day.

Jayne and the Shepard made lunch from tins and protein blocks, seasoned with some of the Shepard's supplies to taste a bit more like food. The spices were old but the idea was one of the nicer ones Zoë had come upon after too many days floating.

No one would admit where chocolate came from, but it was there at the end. Kaylee hopped off to take some up to the captain. Inara, the Shepard, and Jayne were engaged in some deeper conversation at the end of the table. The doctor was just watching, stroking River's hair while the girl slept against his shoulder.

Familiar as ever, Wash put that arm around her shoulders and leaned them closer together. "So far as Christmas goes."

"We've had worse," she admitted, looking over just for the sake of giving him a smile. "Wouldn't you say?"

Wash nodded and kissed her soundly. "I would say."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Redalader: Thank you for your prompts and I'm so sorry for the wait! This was a labor of love, but I will happily write something based on another of your prompts if this doesn't jive for you.
> 
>  **Memo:** I don't check comments or kudos, but feel free to yell at me on [tumblr](http://matrya.tumblr.com) or [check out](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Matrya) my other writing!


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